Pinterest raises $200 million in new funding to invest in discovery, monetization

In 2014, Pinterest has been heads-down in product development, refining its search capabilities on mobile and rolling out revenue-generating Promoted Pins, but it seems that it also had some time to raise a bit of extra cash. The company has confirmed to ReadWrite that it raised a $200 million Series F round, which boosts its valuation to $5 billion.

CEO Ben Silbermann said:

“Pinterest has a vision of solving discovery and helping everyone find things they’ll love. This new investment gives us additional resources to realize our vision.”

To date, Pinterest has raised $764 million since its launch in 2009. This latest round of funding comes a little more than half a year from the company’s massive Series E — which totaled $225 million and placed the company’s value at $3.8 billion. That round included many of Pinterest’s previous investors, including First Round and Andreessen Horowitz.

A spokesperson for Pinterest confirmed that participating firms included Andreessen as well as SV Angel, Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity, FirstMark Capital and Valiant Capital Partners. The money will go towards investing technology to build upon the company’s new Guided Search platform, as well as global personnel expansion and building up the company’s advertising program.

Pinterest is setting up to have quite the stockpile of cash as it plans to grow both its search functionality and ad revenue. The company announced on Monday that it would be running a paid limited test with Promoted Pins, including participation from places like Target and Old Navy. Rumors have long swirled that the company is on the verge of going public, and with plenty of cash in the bank and new products around the corner, Pinterest could set itself up for a well-timed IPO.

This article was updated several times Thursday afternoon as more information became available. The headline has also been corrected to reflect accurate funding information.